There's been this dream, the dream that one day everyone will be given the opportunity to play any game they want to no matter what hardware they are totting. The way to do this is streaming your content so that there is a system doing all the heavy lifting, and your system doesn't have to worry about it. The problem has and will be for a long time to come, latency. What is the magical formula going to be to make the streaming capable of magically pushing out the 4K awesomeness and to be able to track the twitch skills of the pro gamers out there?

We've seen different attempts made to try to find a solution, and every company, thus far, has tried their way of doing things and then in the long run it falls apart. Problems have been, the technology of the infrastructure (ie. coax, phone line, etc), the number of lack thereof data centers that will be handling all the computing (fun fact the further away you are from that center the more you're going to get lag), and lack of a gaming library.

Now the two very vocal opponents that have stepped into the ring this time are Google and Microsoft. They both have a different approach, and to be honest I don't know if there is one solution, however I'm not 100% sold that either of these companies are going to have a working solution that will last more than the stretch of the "new car smell" phenomena. Google, from my understanding, is trying to do it through their browser Chrome, a web browser that is supposed to be smooth but at the same time has been added all types of hidden processes running (nowadays). My biggest fear when dealing with Google is that they have a habit of totting a product and making it look like the next best thing, and then dropping it at a whim.

Microsoft is going with a slightly different approach, from my understanding, you will need to get some new hardware. This hardware will then do some of the lifting to take some of the strain off of the network, but it will be a streaming only console. They of course are pushing the "will play any game" model as well, and have already come out and promised that those who have already developed for the XBOX One will have no trouble moving it over to the new platform, which for now is being called Project xCloud.

Now of course this feeds into my ever growing worry of this "online always" existence, and as each day passes it is becoming clearer and clearer that we are going to be bound, once again to some form of subscription service. The questions will be how much will it cost, how will our internet connection hold up to it, and what hoops will we have to jump through.

Charlie and Zealeus give you what you want on a Thursday Night Hangout:

Our Favorite Final Fantasy Octopath Traveler Would You Remake Mario 64 or Super Mario RPG Extra-Life Marathon Discussion What Character Would You Like to see in Smash Bros? Marvel or DC Nike's Kap ad MomoCon 2019 Magic the Gathering or Yu-gi-Oh

This Week Charlie and Jason take sometime out of your Thursday Night to discuss the following topics:

Charlie Finally has his Capture Card Installed Charlie will be participating in Extra-Life for his Seventh Straight Year Ambiguous characters can be any race/gender/etc eSports Tournaments and the Lack of Security, and concerns of safety Unsanctioned Tournaments and What Some Developers/Publishers might do to you Fan-made Content and what some Developers/Publishers might do to you